Containers are interactive objects that can contain items, or be used to store items in the game. There are a variety of different containers in Skyrim, most of which initially hold loot appropriate to the container's style and location. Some containers may contain valuable treasure or gold, while others may only contain food or non-valuable clutter. Any container that contains nothing has "(empty)" after its name, letting you know that you do not need to bother searching it.

When you activate a container, you are presented with an inventory list displaying the container's current contents. You can move individual items from the container to your personal inventory, or you can "Select All" to take everything in the container. Alternatively, you can scroll down to your personal inventory and move any items from there into the container if you wish to store items and/or get rid of extra items.

However, most containers in the game are not safe for long-term storage, as stated in a loading screen:

Items can be stored safely in any containers in your own home. But items kept in any other containers may not be there later when you go to retrieve them...

Most containers will respawn if you leave the area for multiple days (in most cases, ten days, but the exact number depends upon where the container is located). Any contents left in a container when it respawns will disappear and be permanently lost. Safe Containers provides details on which containers can safely be used for long-term storage, without risk of losing your stored items.

Apothecary's satchels are small leather containers, often found near Alchemy Labs, that contain alchemy Ingredients and/or Potions. There are actually three different types of satchel (all identically named), each with different quality and number of ingredients:

Common: contains one common ingredient, and a 25% chance of containing one restoration potion (potion is random and leveled, with equal chance of being restore Health, Magicka, or Stamina)

Uncommon: contains one common ingredient, one uncommon ingredient, and a 25% chance of containing one restoration potion

Rare: contains one common ingredient, one uncommon ingredient, one rare ingredient, and a 25% chance of containing one restoration potion

Barrels are one of the most common types of containers, found in homes, shops, towns, and many dungeons. In addition to barrels that act as containers, there are also static barrels that are purely decorative; the latter type of barrel is slightly darker in color and cannot be activated. There are several different types of standard barrels, which contain different items (although they are all identically named).

Chests are the standard container for treasure and other types of valuable loot. There are actually more than two hundred different types of containers that are identified as "Chest". The majority of these are visually identical, but have different contents. Different types of chests are located in each different type of dungeon (e.g., Draugr chests, Forsworn chests, and Vampire chests each have slightly different contents). More than half of the different types of chests are actually Merchant Chests that are hidden and not intended for player use.

Knapsacks are less common and are usually found near adventurers and hunters (dead or alive), near skeletal remains, as well as in bandit campsites. There are two types of knapsacks in the game, and the Dawnguard add-on adds in a third.

There are many corpses in the game which are considered to be containers in game data. Unless otherwise noted, all of the containers listed here do respawn with the cell in which they're located. Dead NPCs are not found here and are listed at their category instead.

Second type: These are the corpses of Stormcloak soldiers which appear in two locations: Kilkreath Ruins (six in the Temple, five in the Ruins, and ten in the Catacombs) and the Throat of the World (ten, during Alduin's Bane). The ones at the Throat of the World cannot be looted, as they only appear during the cutscene in which you learn Dragonrend. They each carry 20-100 gold.

Containers may be safe for one of two reasons. Some container types are set to be non-respawning—containers of that type will never respawn, no matter where the container is found. Other containers are safe because of their location—some locations, in particular the player's houses, are identified as non-respawning locations. All containers in these safe locations (even common Barrels and Sacks) can safely be used for storage.

Child's Chest is a part of child's bedroom. It will be empty if you haven't adopted any children. Your children may collect various things and store them in their chest. Their older weapons, clothes and dolls will be kept in it too, if you give them a new one. Your children will restock it every few days. However, the original contents in it won't disappear.

Whenever a citizen of a hold dies, the items that they were carrying, such as keys, clothes, and weapons, will appear in a coffin in the Hall of the Dead of the hold capital. These items will then be free to take without consequence.

Cupboards are common furniture in houses. Different types of cupboards appear in common houses, upper-class houses, and noble houses. Some models have shelves on which additional items may be placed. The interior contents of cupboards are:

In addition to being a safe container, the Pot can be picked up and moved (although not between zones or fast traveling). This can permit a player to place a safe container at any outdoor location, or move weight beyond their carry limit. Places where a Pot can be found include:

Safe locations are places that never respawn. Therefore, every container in the location (even a common barrel or sack) is safe for storage. The primary example of a safe location is a player-owned house, but a large number of other places are also non-respawning. Unless noted otherwise on the place page, only the interior areas of these locations are safe—i.e., only regions that are entered through a door that triggers a loading screen, and have their own map, separate from the exterior map.

In a few instances, there may be quest-related changes to the location (as noted on the individual place page), but otherwise the game does not modify the contents of a safe location.

All merchants in the game (with the exception of Hunters, Peddlers, and skooma dealers) have a merchant chest containing the merchant's gold and the goods they have available for sale. The chest does not contain the merchant's entire inventory—merchants will also sell some items sitting out in the store and unequipped items in their personal inventory—and also is not the only source of merchant gold—any personal gold will be added to the merchant's available gold. Nevertheless, the merchant chest contains the standard list of items sold by the merchant. If multiple merchants work in the same store, they share the same merchant chest. A merchant must be in the same area as the chest in order for its contents to be made available for sale. It respawns every two days, independent of whether the rest of the cell contents respawn.

The merchant chest is a standard container, but it is intentionally hidden to prevent players from accessing the chest. On the PC, using the tclConsole command generally allows the merchant chest to be found, most commonly under the floor of the merchant's store. The existence of this chest is not a bug, an easter egg, or in any way noteworthy—it is a standard part of game mechanics that is not visible as part of standard game play.

Book Shelves in the player's houses can be activated to access a limited capacity book inventory, and automatically place books on the shelves. Other types of items may be moved onto the shelves manually. Bookshelves are also known to be used with the reusable Oghma Infinium glitch.

Display Cases have a glass top that will open and close through activation, and a weapon may be placed in them while they are open by activating them.

Mannequins can be activated to store and display armor, and clothing. They have a weight limit (around 305). Their BaseID is 89a85.

NPCs can be used as containers either via pickpocketing or trading with followers, but have a weight limit as to how much they can carry.

As many corpses can be picked up and carried around, they can effectively become portable containers, allowing you to potentially carry an unlimited number of items around and remain unencumbered. The speed at which you can carry the corpse appears to be related to its size, so small corpses like hawks work well in this capacity. It is worth noting, however, these portable containers should not be considered safe, as their contents may be deleted if left for a long period of time. A "Pot" is a portable Safe Container. Followers work as a portable container as you can place all non-useful items into a chest or container and ask them to take everything in it--using this method your follower has no weight limit and isn't slowed down. (Warning: using this method may cause all such items to become flagged as 'Stolen' when you try to reclaim them.)

Bookshelves can often glitch, causing you to lose any books that are stored on the shelf you are using. If you try to overload the shelf with too many books, you may permanently lose all the books on it, as well as making the shelf unable to be activated. Occasionally these books are still visible but unable to be activated. Also, the "take all" button will sometimes only take some of the books, permanently deleting others.

Some containers strictly named Strong Box are supposed to potentially contain generic loot but are always empty.